Affordable housing - what is it?

sportbeth

Forgive my divvyness here. But my vision of this is of a nice idea for keyworkers, Police, Nurses, Teachers and the like top help them get part buy/part rent ownership.

My other half's cynycism is that if they are not taken up they will then turn into council rented places.

We'd love to buy a new place, and have wanted to ever since we started talking about buying together a year ago, but this new affordable housing thing is putting us off new builds. Surely the government doesn';t expect me to pay £320,000 for a new house (south east prices I'm afraid) and gamble on burnt out caravan's in my neighbour's garden?)

Any thoughts on this? How do you see it working? I have also heard that this will mean the end of council estates so am I better off buying in an established neighbourhood than going new build?

I guess what I am asking is how do you think these new estates will work and would you go there?

rchddap1

I live in what you term 'affordable housing'...actually shared ownership. Firstly on our estate all this type of housing is clumped together in one area. Meaning that our better off neighbours can ignore us if they decide to.

Secondly there isn't a burnt out caravan in sight.....actually not sure if you could get one in the garden anyway.

Thirdly it is run by a housing association so if there are any problems they can kick them out. And in fact did kick out one of our more annoying neighbours (loud music, destroying the flat etc...). Can't think of anyone we know that wasn't happy when that happened.

Forthly our little area has allocated parking....so quite often on that front we are much better off than the more expensive houses next to us who tend to park on pavements, and on the road (which you can't get 2 cars past each other with ease anyway). In fact for parking the huge 5 bed houses are the worst offenders for parking on roads and pavements.

Please do not assume that just because you hear the word 'affordable' that the area is going to degenerate into the form of a high rise council estate with drugs, vandalism and the like. Our experience has been very positive. It has allowed us to get onto the housing ladder, generate some equity and stay within an area that we like.

Before you buy a brand new house just take a good look around for basics, like parking spaces, gardens etc... A lot of the non-affordable houses bought have ended up back on the market within a year. Either due to lack of space (outside / inside) , cashing in on the increase in the value of their house....don't know of a single move because they didn't get on with someone in the 'affordable' section.

oldMcDonald

Ouch

Cant help re: Part Buy Part Rent question, but would like to point out that you have a very unfair view of council / housing association tennants. I live on a mixed estate of part buy part rent and fully rented houses, mine being rented, and we dont have a burnt out caravan in our garden....neither do any of our neighbors that i've noticed.

lynzpower

If you fall into key worker groups, or even if not, you can get a property via this route as you have suggested. Generally speaking from what I know of the london affordability set up, demand is outstripping supply. Also there are funding issues that suggest that yuour husband is wrong, if the houses dont sell, then they sit empty until they will sell. ( i did read something about this on the housing corporation website , worth a look)

I got a SO new build, as a single person, and therefore its "affordable" ie 75k mortgage rent the other half .IF I could have got mortgaged for the full 199 for the flat ( never on my salary) it would have worked out slightly more that getting a mortgage for the full amount.

2years on I have my OH, and we have decided to move, freeing up equity on it and buying somewhere cheaper. Our budget for the new place is 150k.We can do this between us, fairly easily, and in fact we are looking at spending as little as possible on it.

chugalug

These places will never become 'council' for 2 reasons. 1) they are run by Housing Associations who are funded through loans on their current assets. Council housing is Local Authority and cannot borrow the way HA can. 2)the govt wants to abolish council housing to get rid of the investment problem. They have to invest millions they don't have to bring the properties up to an acceptable standard. All council housing is being encouraged to privatise via Housing Associations.

The move now is for 'affordable' housing to be mixed into the private rented and owner occupied to avoid the types of ghetto's you describe. This has been the case for many years. The reason council housing on estates is so bad is that it is underfunded and ghettoised precisely because the govt wants rid. Once housing associations (or other managers) get hold of it they will have to invest.

There are different types of 'affordable' housing. Some for key workers, some rented, some shared ownership. All of it will be run by Housing associations and all new 'affordable' housing will be in mixed tenure areas.

Dora_the_Explorer_5

oldMcDonald wrote:

Ouch

Cant help re: Part Buy Part Rent question, but would like to point out that you have a very unfair view of council / housing association tennants. I live on a mixed estate of part buy part rent and fully rented houses, mine being rented, and we dont have a burnt out caravan in our garden....neither do any of our neighbors that i've noticed.

I live in HA property transferred from LA ownership last year. I'm saving as hard as I possibly can so I can buy a rusted out Ford Cortina to park in the front garden and two chained psychotic alsations for the back garden.
I have an overwhelming ambition to be different from my neighbours :rotfl:

dander

The thing that puzzles me about 'affordable housing' is who on earth can actually afford it and what the advantage is. By the time you add the rent payments onto the top of mortgage payments it seems to be just as expensive, if not more so, than a mortgage on the whole lot outright. How do people who can't get the full mortgage find all that money?

The other thing I would have thought about affordable housing is that all the schemes I have seen are aimed strictly at certain groups of people - normally keyworkers. This means the demographic of owners is going to be very different from the broad sweep of people in local authority type housing. Also these houses are part-owned, so the people in this section of the estate have just as much interest in maintaining their property and area (and property prices!) as everyone else.

lynzpower

Dander
My 2 bed shared ownership flat, costs more per month via shared ownership than me getting a mortgage for 199950. But then Id never be able to get that on my salary, but doesnt mean I cant manage the payments, as the flat to rent would have been set at more like a grand a month round here minimum.

Who knows eh?

dander

I just can't decide if it's a good thing or a bad thing :huh:

Half of me thinks - good if it means people can get on the housing ladder in the areas they are needed. But the other half of me thinks, but surely they're being ripped off ?!

ManAtHome

Bad thing - why on earth should relatively well-paid public sector employees - teachers, police, nurses be valued above private-sector employees on lower wages?

Answer - govt gets it in the neck if the above services are seen as below par, but don't really give a !!!!!! if the people actaully funding all the spending are up the creek.

sm9ai

Sounds likes it just a way of stretching the current housing boom to the absolute limit.